What do we know about undergraduate students' experiences of university and campus life beyond the curriculum, and the role of such experiences in students��� personal development and transformation? Can any aspects of that student experience be seen as contributing to the 'public good'? This chapter offers a review of eleven years (2007���2017) of scholarly literature on students��� experiences of South African higher education 'beyond the curriculum'. This includes all those aspects of university life which are not related to learning, teaching and academic development; they include the social, economic, political and health-related aspects of the student experience and student life on campus. In this chapter, we aim to give a sense of what has been written about these elements of students��� experiences, what this work says, and also what it does not say.
Human Sciences Research Council (2026) studied this question.